Why dumping Class X exams doesn’t make sense

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal’s idea of doing away with the Class X Board exams is a sweet nothing. It’s music to the ears and it doesn’t amount to much. He wants to ease the burden on children to score high in the Class X Boards. Had he asked students, parents and teachers, all them experts and committees, he’d know it’s not so much the exams kids hate.

In fact, it’s not the exam at all. It’s the sheer paucity of opportunities thereafter. It’s the puny scale and scope of Class XI and Class XII. It’s the Size Zero scale and scope of college. Ironic as it is, it is a fact that the average Chintu went off to a Chicago uni because he didn’t get through Khalsa. More and more students are going off to do all sorts of courses across the world. Melbourne beckons after Class XII because successive governments have failed them.

Sibal says, "The Indian education system is a source of trauma for both parents and children". No, sir. The education system is not the source of trauma. It’s gaining access to the system at the nursery and college levels that’s traumatic. It’s coping with the dearth of options within the system that’s traumatic. If his decision is based on the tragic instances of children committing suicide post poor results, it’s not the education system, Mr Sibal. It’s because their options close after that. Doors close. A child who is pushed to kill herself over low marks will blame herself for a low percentile as well. She’s still left stranded.

It’s the fear of the ‘life after’ if you don’t score well that’s traumatic. The minister’s bang on when he says "student’s aptitude should decide whether he or she wants to study arts or science". True, but how will replacing percentages with percentiles help in securing a child his seat in the science stream? The reason schools fail to listen to students’ pleas of interest, and use marks as a qualifier for various streams is because there aren’t enough seats to go around, private and government. Marks are the excuse.

We don’t need percentiles as critically as we need more seats. Many schools have already done away with final exams till Class VIII, following instead, assessment tests through the year. No one big burden at the end of the year. Easy transit till Class VIII. Learning a pleasure, enjoyment in imbibing knowledge. Perfect. What happens then in Class 10? Is it the fear of the exams? No. It’s the fear that marks will be used against you no matter your grade.

The few at either end of the normal distribution curve, those who score ultra-well and those who flop, always have their choices clear. Drop out and try open school or get into jobs at one end, breeze through to your choice at the other end, weighed down only by advice on what all you can do. It’s the burgeoning middlers who get tossed like noodles in a wok. And the middlers, remember, are high on success, 90-percenters all. Will percentiles make matters easier?

Trouble begins when schools have to perforce be subjective in granting seats in a given stream. When daddy’s contact doesn’t work, mom’s rapport with the princi fails to charm, everyone’s ‘helping’ the school’s swimming pool and gym fund in private schools, that’s where the trouble begins. When marks differ in decimals and when you feel cheated that you didn’t get what you wanted despite achieving great results. The pressure isn’t the exam. The pressure is the lack of options thereafter.

It’s easy to blame the Class X exam. But in growing years, there’s challenge in being tested, in achieving especially in an important national-level test. The problems our students, parents and teachers face today are not a fallout of the tough standards of the Class X or Class XII boards, but of our abominable and shameful failure in not being able to give them what they want despite their achievements. Look at the almost cent percent cut-offs today in DU. And students who’ve achieved grand successes averaging 95% will still be going around with begging bowls, harassed and fatigued.

For the average student, given the opportunity and access to educational resources of teachers, textbooks, libraries and peer-help, Class X is easy. It’s not rocket science. There’s satisfaction in achievement. Go around, minister, generally time-pass with kids right across the spectrum.

Ask them what they fear. The exam or the school’s failure to ensure they get to do what they want in class XI?

More seats, job-oriented vocational studies after Class X, more teachers, more of every damn educational resource is what we need.

And please give me a break that I must remember the poor rural Indians. Hah! They, more than anyone else, laugh that the government can’t ensure opportunity for the rich city kids, what in heaven can it do for them?